How many of your cards are SMART?

How many of your cards are SMART?

How many of your CCs are Smart as is "chip enabled" vs the simple magnetic strip?

Most card issuers available in Canada started converting about 3 or 4 years ago and use both the magnetic stripe and the smart chip. I have 6 CCs (1 business) and 1 bank card, all but one is chip enabled and the 5th one is due for a reissue soon. Most CC readers are also chip enabled, in fact people are forgetting how to use the simple stripe readers. I went to pay for a meal the other day and forgot the PIN number for my business card, so I told the gal to just use the conventional swipe method. The gal at the counter didn't even know how or couldn't remember, it's been so long since she's done it that way. I know - it is a PITA to have to remember yet another number or several but it is the wave of the future.

Some vendors are now even starting to refuse to use non-chip enabled cards. The link below shows that Europe is all chip enabled and those that don't have the EMV chip (EuroPay MasterCard Visa) maybe SOL when it comes to making payments. One wonders how many Americans in London for the Olympics found out the hard way?

Re: How many of your cards are SMART?

I wish it were standard for US card issuers. I would love to have chips in ally cards. So far, the only ones I have that I have chips is my BofA Cash Rewards and my BofA Priveleges with Tracel Rewards.

Re: How many of your cards are SMART?

logan_720 wrote:I wish it were standard for US card issuers. I would love to have chips in ally cards. So far, the only ones I have that I have chips is my BofA Cash Rewards and my BofA Priveleges with Tracel Rewards.

Yeah but if the U.S switched to chip & pin we would lose a whole lot of the great fraud protection we have today.

Re: How many of your cards are SMART?

mmduluth wrote:

Yeah but if the U.S switched to chip & pin we would lose a whole lot of the great fraud protection we have today.

Well, first of all, don't dream of this happening overnight. I still spend a lot of time in Russia, where (probably because of proximity to Europe) some banks started to issue chip and pin cards many years ago already, but many other banks still issue stripe only cards.

Most of the stores have POS terminals that can process both types of cards (many of them now are three-types actually - magnetic stripe, EMV chip and contactless chip (paypass/paywave)), so in Russia it will be hard to find yourself unable to pay either with striped or EMV card.

Though even if this decision is made, you can reasonably expect another 4-5 or even more years of wide acceptance of "traditional" magnetic stripe cards. You can partially judge it by the spread of contactless terminals now - I think it's already more than a year from the time those contactless cards were first presented, but I can still rarely see those terminals anywhere (actually, the only one I often use my contactless cards at is at New York Penn Station, where you can buy NJ Transit tickets with contactless card).

The second thing is that I might not fully follow your logic, but based on my experience as a customer in Russia, where unfortunately credit card consumer protection law is far from its excellence and much worse than here in the US (actually, some cardholders are still being held liable for unauthorized charges due to fraud if they can't credibly prove that they were unable to perform the specific transaction for some obvious reasons), adding EMV chips to cards made them safer for consumers, at least for the reason that now they can not be easily copied. I might be wrong in details, but in general if a customer with EMV-chipped card disputes the 'card present' transaction, that has been processed using magnetic stripe (e.g. due to the old type of terminal installed at the store), the customer almost automatically 'wins' the dispute and the merchant is held liable for that charge (for not complying with the most advanced security standards).

Of course, one might think of other scenarios how the card might be compromised and used my unauthorized person, but I don't really see why this would necessary make the situation with consumer protection worse?

Re: How many of your cards are SMART?

Roarmeister wrote:

How many of your CCs are Smart as is "chip enabled" vs the simple magnetic strip?

Most card issuers available in Canada started converting about 3 or 4 years ago and use both the magnetic stripe and the smart chip. I have 6 CCs (1 business) and 1 bank card, all but one is chip enabled and the 5th one is due for a reissue soon. Most CC readers are also chip enabled, in fact people are forgetting how to use the simple stripe readers. I went to pay for a meal the other day and forgot the PIN number for my business card, so I told the gal to just use the conventional swipe method. The gal at the counter didn't even know how or couldn't remember, it's been so long since she's done it that way. I know - it is a PITA to have to remember yet another number or several but it is the wave of the future.

Some vendors are now even starting to refuse to use non-chip enabled cards. The link below shows that Europe is all chip enabled and those that don't have the EMV chip (EuroPay MasterCard Visa) maybe SOL when it comes to making payments. One wonders how many Americans in London for the Olympics found out the hard way?

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IMPORTANT INFORMATION: All FICO® Score products made available on myFICO.com include a FICO® Score 8, along with additional FICO® Score versions. Your lender or insurer may use a different FICO® Score than the versions you receive from myFICO, or another type of credit score altogether. Learn more

FICO, myFICO, Score Watch, The score lenders use, and The Score That Matters are trademarks or registered trademarks of Fair Isaac Corporation. Equifax Credit Report is a trademark of Equifax, Inc. and its affiliated companies. Many factors affect your FICO Score and the interest rates you may receive. Fair Isaac is not a credit repair organization as defined under federal or state law, including the Credit Repair Organizations Act. Fair Isaac does not provide "credit repair" services or advice or assistance regarding "rebuilding" or "improving" your credit record, credit history or credit rating. FTC's website on credit.